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All Theses and Dissertations
2018-06-01
Social Media Use and Its Impact on Relationships
and Emotions
Spencer Palmer Christensen
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Brigham Young University
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6927.
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Social Media Use and Its Impact on Relationships and Emotions
Spencer Palmer Christensen
A thesis submitted to the faculty of
Brigham Young University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
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Master of Arts
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Kristoffer D. Boyle, Chair
Scott H. Church
Robert I. Wakefield
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School of Communications
Brigham Young University
Copyright © 2018 Spencer Palmer Christensen
All Rights Reserved
ProQuest Number: 28107583
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ABSTRACT
Social Media Use and Its Impact on Relationships and Emotions
Spencer Palmer Christensen
School of Communications, BYU
Master of Arts
A large majority of the people throughout the world own a smartphone and access social media
on a daily basis. Because of this digital attachment, the author sought to understand to what
extent this use has impacted the users’ emotional well-being and offline interpersonal
relationships. A sample size of 627 participants completed a mixed-methods survey consisting of
Likert scale and short answer questions regarding social media use, emotional well-being and
interpersonal relationships. Results revealed that the more time an individual spent on social
media the more likely they were to experience a negative impact on their overall emotional well-
being and decreased quality in their relationships. Emotional well-being also mediated the
relationship between time spent using social media and the quality of that user’s relationships,
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meaning that the more time a person spent on social media the more likely their emotional well-
being declined which then negatively impacted their relationships. The top three responses for
negative effects of social media use on emotions were frustration, depression, and social
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comparison. The top three responses for negative effects of social media use on interpersonal
relationships were distraction, irritation, and decreased quality time with their significant other in
offline settings. An analysis of these, and other, results, along with relative implications, are
discussed.
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Keywords: social media, emotional well-being, interpersonal relationships, uses and
gratifications
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to personally thank everyone who has contributed to helping me complete my
thesis, without whom I would not have met the requirements for graduation. My wife, Kaily, has
been my champion and supporter through all of graduate school and I thank her for her love and
companionship. My daughter, Evelyn, served as my motivation to push through the hard times so
that I could support her. To my committee: Kris Boyle, Scott Church, and Robert Wakefield, I
thank you for your advice, insights, and counsel that has shaped my thesis into what it has
become; I could not have made it this far without your help. Lastly, to Chris Wilson, Kevin John,
and Jared Hansen, I thank you for your help in organizing and analyzing my quantitative results
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as my knowledge of SPSS was very limited.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE .............................................................................................................................. i
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iv
Introduction ................................................................................................................................1
Literature Review ........................................................................................................................3
Uses and Gratifications Theory ...............................................................................................3
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Benefits of Social Media .........................................................................................................4
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Interpersonal Relationships in a Digital Age ............................................................................8
FOMO and Anxiety...............................................................................................................10
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Depression and Loneliness ....................................................................................................13
Research Questions/Hypotheses ............................................................................................15
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Method .....................................................................................................................................16
Results ......................................................................................................................................23
Figure 1 .................................................................................................................................26
Figure 2 .................................................................................................................................27
Discussion.................................................................................................................................32
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................45
References ................................................................................................................................47
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Appendix A—Social Media Survey ..........................................................................................54
Appendix B—Tables .................................................................................................................58
Table 1 ..................................................................................................................................58
Table 2 ..................................................................................................................................58
Table 3 ..................................................................................................................................58
Table 4 ..................................................................................................................................60
Table 5 ..................................................................................................................................60
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Table 6 ..................................................................................................................................60
Table 7 ..................................................................................................................................61
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Table 8 ..................................................................................................................................62
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Table 9 ..................................................................................................................................62
Table 10 ................................................................................................................................63
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Table 11 ................................................................................................................................63
Table 12 ................................................................................................................................64
Table 13 ................................................................................................................................65
Table 14 ................................................................................................................................66
Table 15 ................................................................................................................................67
SOCIAL MEDIA USE 1
Introduction
Social media use is a ubiquitous phenomenon (Elhai, Levine, Dvorak, & Hall, 2016;
Pittman, & Reich, 2016; Quinn, 2016). Research shows that 90% of adults own a smartphone
(Pew Research Center, 2014). Additional research indicates that 72% of Americans and an
average of 43% of the world own a smartphone (Elhai et al., 2016) while more than 71% of
American adolescents, ages 13-17, regularly use Facebook (Beyens, Frison, & Eggermont,
2016). Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world containing 1.5 billion
active users with at least 900 million of these logging into the site daily (Ryan, Chester, Reece, &
Xenos, 2014). Pittman and Reich (2016) synthesized these findings to indicate that 91% of
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smartphone owners used social networking sites on their phone at least once every day.
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Due to the prevalence of social media in our lives, the people of the world are more
interconnected than at any other time in history. Because of this, there could be a perception that
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people are happier because they are connected with more people. In fact, Nezlek, Richardson,
Green, and Schatten-Jones (2002) found that participants who were more socially active [offline]
reported greater life satisfaction and higher psychological well-being. However, social
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interaction in the virtual world tells a different story, especially when those online connections
impact our offline interpersonal relationships.
Throughout the past decade, social media use has grown exponentially and has changed
the way we communicate with each other. Facebook is the most used online media platform in
the world (Beyens, Frison, & Eggermont, 2016; Steers, 2016) and has a high potential for
impacting the emotions and relationships of adolescents who use it (Kross et al., 2013). The
primary purpose of this paper is to determine if a relationship exists between excessive social
media use and the overall emotional well-being of that individual as well as the quality of the
SOCIAL MEDIA USE 2
individual’s interpersonal relationships. The secondary purpose is to determine if the relationship
between time spent on social media and the quality of the interpersonal relationships is mediated
by the emotional well-being of the user such as fear of missing out (FOMO), anxiety, depression,
and loneliness as seen through the lens of uses and gratifications theory.
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SOCIAL MEDIA USE 3
Literature Review
Uses and Gratifications Theory
The most common theory used to understand why people engage with social media is
uses and gratifications theory (U&G). This theory was first proposed by Elihu Katz and his
partners Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch in 1973 and was used to study the motives people
have for engaging with the media that they do in order to gratify their needs (Katz, Blumler, &
Gurevitch, 1973). U&G is a psychological communication perspective and theorizes that
individuals are actively engaged in seeking out media that they believe will satisfy certain needs
(Katz et al., 1973; Rubin, 2009). U&G posits that media consumers make their own choices on
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which media and what type of media they consume in order to receive maximum gratification for
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their needs (Alajmi et al., 2016). To summarize, U&G focuses on consumers’ motives for using
specific types of media and the satisfaction they receive from their use.
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People make their own decisions on which media to engage with in order to satisfy their
needs, however those needs are not always obtained. Often times, the gratifications sought are
not the same as the gratifications obtained and although strongly correlated, continued use of a
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medium over time implies that the gratifications obtained strongly reinforce continued use of that
same medium in order to continue seeking the gratifications originally sought after (Levy &
Windahl, 1984; Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rayburn, 1980).
Blumler and Katz (1974) synthesized U&G by explaining that is was focused on social
and psychological needs that create certain expectations of mass media which lead to particular
patterns of media exposure and result in need gratification as well as other consequences,
although these other consequences are perhaps unintended. Blumler et al. (1974) further
explained that there were five main components to U&G:
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1. The audience is believed to be active
2. The linking of gratification and media choice lies with the consumer
3. The media compete with other sources of gratification
4. The goals of mass media are derived from the content created by the consumers
5. Value judgments of mass media should be suspended while consumer orientations are
explored
While uses and gratifications theory was once used to explore the gratifications gained
from TV and radio use, it has since been adapted for the study of social media and its various
elements such as gratifications from Facebook use (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009; Quan-Haase
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& Young, 2010), privacy regulations online (Quinn, 2016), Chinese social media apps (Gan,
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2018), social capital (Petersen & Johnston, 2015), and motivations for social media use (Cheung,
Chiu, & Lee, 2011), among others which all contribute to the credibility of using this theory for
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the purposes of the present study. Further evidence supporting the use of this theory to study
social media is that the five main components of U&G proposed by Katz et al. (1974) can be
applied to social media use. U&G is widely considered a pro-social theory that highlights the
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benefits for using various types of media and some of those benefits are worth taking the time to
examine.
Benefits of Social Media
With a large portion of the world accessing social media on a daily basis, there is ever-
increasing evidence that social media offer a varied experience for each user and that some of
those experiences produce positive results. These benefits offer possible explanations as to why
social media usage is continuing to grow throughout the world. One of the most common reasons
that people use social media is to stay connected with their friends and family members
SOCIAL MEDIA USE 5
(Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009; Subrahmanyam, Reich, Waechter, & Espinoza, 2008;
Wang, Tchernev, & Solloway, 2012). Social media offer an easy way of keeping in touch and
maintaining relationships with people who are often beyond the close proximity of frequent
communication. Subrahmanyam et al. (2008) added to this by suggesting that many social media
users use it to both connect and reconnect with others indicating that there was overlap between
participants' online and offline networks. However, the overlap was imperfect; the pattern
suggested that many online users engaged in different online contexts to manage various parts of
their offline connections.
Online profiles often reflect some version of the offline lives they represent. In these
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online profiles, social media users express certain elements of themselves that they want others
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to see. In other words, the user manipulates the preferences of their profile to build an online
identity (Pempek et al., 2009). In addition to helping establish an online identity, social media
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use also offers gratification in certain emotional, cognitive, social, and habitual areas of the
users’ lives (Wang et al., 2012). Generally however, only some of these areas are fully gratified
leading to an accumulation of ungratified needs which drives subsequent social media use and
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contributes to the user becoming addicted or, at the very least, using social media excessively
unless those needs are satisfied in offline situations.
Desired gratifications on social media often drive the behaviors that lead to those
gratifications. Hayes, Carr, and Wohn (2016) explored the meaning that “liking” a post on
Facebook (or a “favorite” on Twitter, etc…) had for both the original poster and the one who
“liked” the post. The results of the study indicated that people devalued Facebook “likes” owing
to the fact that they were more reactionary than conscious. Favorites on Twitter did not matter
because it was more about the content than the social capital. Liking on Instagram was more
SOCIAL MEDIA USE 6
selective. Receiving upvotes on Reddit contributed to the social currency of the post making it
more trustworthy and accepted by other redditors.
Additionally, findings from the study by Hayes et al. (2016) revealed four main
motivations for sending a paralinguistic digital affordance (PDA—aka “liking,” or “favoriting” a
post) and three main gratifications for receiving a PDA. The motivations for sending a PDA
included: literal interpretation—the PDA was an evaluation of the content; acknowledgement of
viewing—the PDA served as an acknowledgement to the poster that they had seen the post;
social support—the PDA served as a way of saying that you supported the person in their
endeavors; and lastly utilitarian purposes—the PDA served as a personal score card to make
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themselves feel better about sending out so many PDA’s to so many people. On the flip side,
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those who originally sent the post received three main gratifications from PDA’s: emotional
gratification—participants reported feeling happy when they received a PDA; status
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gratification—the more PDA’s their post received the higher their social status; social
gratification—PDA’s served to create or enhance interpersonal relationships (Hayes et al., 2016).
The results from Hayes et al. (2016) explained that there were various gratifications
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people received from using social media. However, additional research will help to further
illuminate this phenomenon. Oeldorf-Hirsch and Sundar (2016) explored motivations for why
people share photos online. The participants were asked questions regarding why they share
photos online and the results revealed four categories of gratifications: seeking and
showcasing—the need to keep up with the world and keep tabs on others; technological
affordances—the features of the platform make it easier to share; social connection—
maintaining close relationships and creating new relationships; and reaching out—wanting to
reach a wide audience and receive feedback on their photos. These findings indicate that photo
SOCIAL MEDIA USE 7
sharing is driven by social needs and that the platform offered special affordances that enabled
the behavior (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar, 2016).
Interactions on social media have frequently been referred to as bridging and bonding
social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Putnam, 2000). Bourdieu and Wacquant
(1992) define social capital as “the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an
individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized
relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (p. 14). As it relates to social media, social
capital is the relationships established online that enrich virtual interactions. Bridging and
bonding are often placed as opposites to each other, but this would be an incorrect assumption of
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these concepts. Rather, they are relatable dimensions along which different forms of social
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capital can be compared. Bridging social capital is composed of several elements including:
connecting with people who think differently from ‘me;’ ties are generally weaker and more
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fragile, but they allow for more open doors that bonding does not allow; more likely to foster
social inclusion; good for linking external assets and information diffusion; good for getting
ahead; and can generate a broader range of identities. Examples include: loose connections,
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lesser-known classmates at school, LinkedIn connections, and your brother’s boss, among others.
Bonding social capital is comparable, but with key differences: connecting with like-minded
individuals; ties are stronger and are usually kept within a smaller circle of connections; fosters
social exclusion due to strong in-group loyalty; good for getting by; and can be referred to as an
echo chamber of individuals who think alike without opposing ideas. Examples include: families,
closed group forums, and fraternities (Putnam, 2000).
When a user engages with others on social media they incorporate both bridging and
bonding techniques in order to maximize the benefits of their social media usage in the form of
SOCIAL MEDIA USE 8
social capital. Essentially, the better well-established an individual’s social capital is the greater
their realm of influence online. However, users must also exercise caution when connecting with
others so that they do not become too vulnerable by over-exposing their personal information.
Quinn (2016) found that there were four valid concerns about sharing personal information
online: information control—controlling the amount of information you send out to other people;
power loss—when you share your personal information with others they gain some degree of
power over you; identity loss—perceived damage; future life of information—perceived
likelihood of harm. Considering these levels of privacy, it is interesting to see how these privacy
behaviors affect the way users engage with others on social media as well as how those online
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behaviors impact the relationships that are formed both on social media and in the physical
world.
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Interpersonal Relationships in a Digital Age
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Interpersonal relationships are relationships that take place between two or more people
and can include both online (thanks to the Internet) and offline interactions. Although important
and worth the time to explore, the present study does not examine online relationships in depth.
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Rather, this study is interested in understanding how individuals use the Internet, in particular
social media, and to what extent it affects their offline interpersonal relationships. Some research
suggests that social media are already changing the way that we interact with each other offline.
Chotpitayasunondh and Douglas (2016) coined a new term known as “phubbing” which
represents “the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by concentrating on one’s phone
instead of talking to the person directly” (p. 10). They found that this “phubbing” behavior was
growing increasingly more commonplace and acceptable and that people were beginning to see
this once-thought-of-as-rude behavior as normal. The extent to which people would phub others
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